Blood and Oil : The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum,

Michael T. Klare

In his pathbreaking Resource Wars, world security expert Michael Klare alerted us to the role of resources
in conflicts in the post-cold-war world. Now, in Blood and Oil, he concentrates on a single precious
commodity, petroleum, while issuing a warning to the United States—its most powerful, and most dependent,
global consumer.
Since September 11 and the commencement of the "war on terror," the world's attention has been focused
on the relationship between U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie
beneath the region's soil. Klare traces oil's impact on international affairs since World War II, revealing
its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines. He shows how America's own wells are
drying up as our demand increases; by 2010 the United States will need to import 60 percent of its oil.
And since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, often violently anti-American
zones—the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, Latin America, and Africa—our dependency is bound to lead to
recurrent military involvement.
With clarity and urgency, Blood and Oil delineates the United States' predicament and cautions that it
is time to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.